Crab and Corn Chowder
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
Soup
- 3 ears sweet corn kernels cut off from cobs (both kernels and cobs reserved)
- 7 cups low sodium chicken broth homemade or store-bought
- 6 oz bacon diced
- 3 large shallots diced
- 2 celery stalks diced
- 1 small fennel bulb cored and diced
- Kosher salt and pepper to taste
- 1 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 5 Tbsp all-purpose flour
- 2 large about 1lb Yukon gold potatoes, diced
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 8 oz lump crab meat gently picked through to make sure there are no shells
- Hot sauce celery leaves, fresh chives, and/or dill, for garnish if desired
Seaweed and Old Bay Croutons
- 1 .17 oz pack roasted seaweed
- 3 cups small diced baguette about ½ a baguette
- 1 tsp old bay
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- Olive oil to coat
- Kosher salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Begin by preparing the corn stock. Add the 3 corn cobs (kernels removed!) and chicken stock to a medium pot.
- Bring to a simmer, and simmer on low heat for 45 minutes to infuse. Strain and set aside (You will need 4 cups of corn stock for the recipe). *
- In a large pot, render bacon until crispy. Add in shallots, celery, and fennel, and season with salt and pepper. Cook until veggies are softened.
- Add in butter and melt. Sprinkle in flour and stir to mix flour with the fat to make a roux. Add in bay leaves.
- Pour in 4 cups of the reserved corn stock, and stir, scraping the bottom to release any brown bits.
- Bring to a boil, stirring, and reduce to a low simmer. The soup will start to thicken at this point. Stir in potatoes, and reserved corn kernels. Let soup simmer on low heat, stirring often, until potatoes are soft, about 25-35 minutes.
- While the soup simmers, prepare the croutons. Preheat the oven to 425 F.
- In a small blender or a food processor, blend seaweed until fine flakes are formed. Don’t blend too long, or the seaweed will become too “pasty”.
- Add bread cubes, ground seaweed, old bay, and paprika to a bowl. Toss to coat. Drizzle with enough olive oil to fully coat the bead. Toss again.
- Season to taste with salt and pepper. Taste the bread before adding salt as it may not need any!
- Spread croutons out on a sheet tray and bake until golden and crunchy, about 10-15 minutes. Set aside to cool.
- Once the soup has simmered, remove the bay leaves, and stir in cream and crab meat. Simmer just a minute or two longer to heat the cream and crab. Season to taste with salt and pepper. I like a good amount of pepper in this!
- Serve soup garnished with any of the listed toppings that you’d like, along with the croutons on top.
Video
Notes
*Make sure to just simmer this, as you don’t want to boil away the stock and not have enough liquid for the recipe
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